Notes on how things seem to me from out here in Hollywood... As seen from Just Above Sunset
OF INTEREST
Click here to go there... Click here to go there...

Here you will find a few things you might want to investigate.

Support the Just Above Sunset websites...

Sponsor:

Click here to go there...

ARCHIVE
« April 2004 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30
Photos and text, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003,2004,2005,2006 - Alan M. Pavlik
Contact the Editor

Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







Site Meter
Technorati Profile

Monday, 12 April 2004

Topic: The Economy

Misery Loves Company: Economic data for most of us in the middle...

Today in CNN Money
Not so bad, not so good
Household income is little changed since 2000 -- not the message sent by either Kerry or Bush.
April 12, 2004: 2:39 PM EDT

I read it. It confused me.

But I liked this summary from Kevin Drum -
Kerry says middle class families are worse off and the rich are better off under George Bush.

- George Bush says that's not so: average income has gone up 5.9% in the past three years. Not bad!

- Oops, wait a second. That's "average" income. The right measure is "median" income, since the average is skewed upward by.....the rich being better off.

- Median household income has decreased 3.3% since 2000.

- But wait! If you take into account tax cuts and increased entitlement income, median household income has.....declined 0.6%.

Even flat income for three straight years is disastrous, of course, something the writer of the article seems not to understand. So no matter how you measure it, middle class families are worse off and the rich are better off under George Bush. Just like Kerry said.

It's worth noting that the article is non-bylined. I can understand why.
Well, today the Kerry campaign came out with its "Misery Index" - some sort of thing that's supposed to let folks know why things seem so bad, and how they got to be so bad, and then allow them to rag on Bush's methods for improving life here, at least economically. I would have preferred the thing be called the "Hard Times Index" as that sounds much more Woody Guthrie populist and much more appealing.

On the other hand, when I lived in the far upper left corner of New York, almost where it meets Canada at Niagara Falls, the radio station at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Brockport broadcast its daily "Dismality Index" - temperature and precipitation and cloud-cover and humidity and snow-cover and what not all balanced against each other. That was amusing, and made us all laugh as we looked out the window at the crap in the sky.

Maybe the economic "Misery Index" is okay.

Posted by Alan at 21:59 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
home


Topic: For policy wonks...

Is This the Problem?


"The Bush administration went into Iraq with a series of prejudices about Iraq, rogue states, nation-building, the Clinton administration, multilateralism and the U.N. It believed Iraq was going to vindicate these ideological positions. As events unfolded the administration proved stubbornly unwilling to look at facts on the ground, new evidence and the need for shifts in its basic approach. It was more important to prove that it was right than to get Iraq right."

From Our Last Real Chance
Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, April 19, 2004 issue

The emphasis is mine. Seems so. Moral clarity turns out to be just pride and stubbornness.

Posted by Alan at 21:55 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
home


Topic: The Law

Fat Tony and his Goon Squad

Dahlia Lithwick, the resident attorney and legal theorist over at SLATE.COM has some amusing thoughts today.

See Marshal, Marshal, Marshal - Scalia's goon squad
By Dahlia Lithwick - Posted Monday, April 12, 2004, at 1:38 PM PT - SLATE.COM

After a discussion of events in Hattiesburg, Mississippi last week - see You don't mess with Fat Tony in Just Above Sunset - where a deputy federal marshal at an Antonin Scalia speech forced two reporters to erase their recordings of Scalia's remarks, which was most likely unconstitutional and illegal - Lithwick notes the particular marshal involved now claims she was only following Scalia's orders, and even if those orders were unconstitutional or illegal, she really doesn't believe she or her boss believe did anything wrong.

Say what?

Then Lithwick trots out her stories:
... the most interesting question of all, is who are these marshals, and who do they think they answer to?

Some of the oddest conversations ever to be had in the United States of America are the ones between the reporters and marshals in the U.S. Supreme Court building. They resemble nothing so much as those bizarre discussions you'd have with your mother about waiting half an hour between a hot dog and a swim--the ones that ended in, "Because I said so." I have had marshals in the court confiscate newspapers and books (including, once, Franz Kafka's The Trial) for no articulable or articulated reason. I've seen them order the removal of neck scarves from some reporters, and head scarves from others, and I've seen them remove sketch artists in T-shirts. I have seen them remove handicapped protesters crawling up the front steps of the court building, while refusing to cite any rule that prohibits such conduct. These same marshals who demand a press badge to enter the courtroom, then march up during oral argument and ask that you not display it on your jacket. Query them as to why you cannot display the same badge needed to enter the proceedings, and they tell you that 3-inch plastic badges distract the justices.

I once watched a marshal confiscate a rather substantial piece of penis-shaped headgear from an appellant in a 9th Circuit appeal, in a case about unconstitutional censorship by local authorities who denied him the right to campaign for public office in his very large penis costume. He was running under the name Dick Head. At least one judge later wondered under what authority his costume had been ... "apprehended" to quote the marshal. But by then it was too late.

The point here isn't that federal marshals are bad people. Most of them are quite nice. The point is that, unlike most federal and state officials, they simply don't believe they answer to any body of law--they are pretty certain that they answer only to the justices. Imagine a police force answerable only to the mayor or federal prosecutors answerable only to John Ashcroft. The marshals have gone from providing security to the justices to being the court's own private militia.

The real problem highlighted by events in Hattiesburg isn't just that Scalia is paranoid or that he'd oddly prefer shaky handwritten notes of his speeches to accurate recordings. The real problem is that there is a small army of state officials who don't seem to be playing by a rulebook. They simply act at the caprice of our judges, and this should not be tolerated.
Really? What would be the fun in that?
_________

Update at noon Pacific Time, Tuesday, April 13, 2004:

Scalia Apologizes for Erasure of Reporters' Tapes of Speech
Justice Vows to Permit Recordings by Print Journalists
Charles Lane, The Washington Post, Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A17
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has issued written apologies for the destruction of two reporters' audiotapes by a deputy U.S. marshal in guarding him last week, and has promised to permit print journalists to record his public speeches in the future, according to a letter by the justice made public yesterday.

In an April 9 letter to Lucy A. Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which had protested the incident, Scalia said he had written to the two reporters, Antoinette Konz of the Hattiesburg American and Denise Grones of the Associated Press, "extending my apology and undertaking to revise my policy so as to permit recording for use of the print media."

Scalia called Dalglish's concern "well justified" and said he had been "as upset as you were" to learn of the deputy marshal's action, which, he said, "was not taken at my direction."

His letter was posted on the Internet yesterday by the Reporters Committee. It was his first known response to the incident, which occurred April 7.
The remainder of the item is a review of events.

There is this, however:
It was unclear yesterday whether Scalia's apology and change in policy would satisfy his critics. Though he indicated a willingness to let print reporters record his remarks for the sake of accurately quoting him, he rejected suggestions that he permit radio and television reporters to record his remarks for broadcast.

"We greatly appreciate Justice Scalia's prompt response to our letter," Dalglish said in a written statement. "However, we remain disappointed with his policy regarding electronic media coverage of his speeches, and hope he will reconsider."

Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, sent Scalia an open letter saying that his policy "discriminates against television and radio journalists, fosters less accurate reporting and undermines the principle at the very core of the First Amendment."

Frank Fisher, the Associated Press's Jackson, Miss., bureau chief, and Jon Broadbooks, executive editor of the Hattiesburg American, said their reporters had not received the letters from Scalia.

Fisher and Broadbooks both used the word "gratified" to sum up their feelings about Scalia's apologies, but said the issue of the deputy U.S. marshal's conduct remained unresolved. Both news organizations have protested to federal authorities.

"There is still the lingering question of why the marshal seized the recordings," Broadbooks said. "We feel it was illegal."
Well, yeah.

Posted by Alan at 17:48 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 13 April 2004 12:59 PDT home

Sunday, 11 April 2004

Topic: For policy wonks...

The policy of preemption discussed here....

Over at the Washington Times see Political fusillades by Walter Williams....

His point?
Fighting terrorism as well as rogue dictators requires a policy of pre-emption. During the 1930s, there should have been a pre-emptive strike on Nazi Germany. If Britain and France had the guts to do that, 60 million lives lost in World War II might have been spared. After World War II, when we held a monopoly on nuclear weapons, we should have told the Soviet Union that if it started making nuclear weapons we'd bomb its facilities. We would have avoided Soviet adventurism and trillions of dollars fighting a Cold War. Today, we should give axis-of-evil member North Korea notice to destroy its nuclear weapons or we'll do it for them.
And a riposte from the irreverent Digby over at Hullabaloo:
Well, it would be nice if our intelligence services could find their way out of a paper bag and provide us with, you know, real information about threats before we go around blowing shit up, but why sweat the small stuff?

I do like this new crystal ball theory of history, though. Just think, if France and Britain had pre-emptively "struck" Germany they could have prevented WWII. If we had pre-emptively "struck" the Soviets we could have prevented the Cold War. And presumably if the British had pre-emptively invaded France they could have prevented the Napoleonic Wars, too. But, I have to suppose that by "strike" he means some kind of magical incantation that paralyzes the population, because otherwise he's talking about starting wars and that usually means that those who are "struck," strike back. Which also means that unless you are willing to nuke the population or occupy it with an iron hand indefinitely, a war is going to result when somebody strikes. He apparently thinks that's fine it's just best if we do the starting.

But, not to worry. I think he also believes that the world will be so impressed by our ability to accurately foretell who is and isn't a threat that they'll just take our word for it and capitulate before we are forced to get really ugly. America is omnipotent and the sooner everybody gets with the program the safer they'll all be. That's what our great success in Iraq is all about. And it's working beautifully.
No one is playing nice these days....

Posted by Alan at 10:19 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Sunday, 11 April 2004 10:27 PDT home

Saturday, 10 April 2004

Topic: Iraq

But I really liked the David Lean movie....

A Report on Mesopotamia By Ex.-Lieut.-Col. T.E. Lawrence ["Lawrence of Arabia"], August 22, 1920, Sunday Times (UK).

The link is here. The text is this:
The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.

The sins of commission are those of the British civil authorities in Mesopotamia (especially of three 'colonels') who were given a free hand by London. They are controlled from no Department of State, but from the empty space which divides the Foreign Office from te India Office. They availed themselves of the necessary discretion of war-time to carry over their dangerous independence into times of peace. They contest every suggestion of real self- government sent them from home. A recent proclamation about autonomy circulated with unction from Baghdad was drafted and published out there in a hurry, to forestall a more liberal statement in preparation in London, 'Self-determination papers' favourable to England were extorted in Mesopotamia in 1919 by official pressure, by aeroplane demonstrations, by deportations to India.

The Cabinet cannot disclaim all responsibility. They receive little more news than the public: they should have insisted on more, and better. They have sent draft after draft of reinforcements, without enquiry. When conditions became too bad to endure longer, they decided to send out as High commissioner the original author of the present system, with a conciliatory message to the Arabs that his heart and policy have completely changed.

Yet our published policy has not changed, and does not need changing. It is that there has been a deplorable contrast between our profession and our practice. We said we went to Mesopotamia to defeat Turkey. We said we stayed to deliver the Arabs from the oppression of the Turkish Government, and to make available for the world its resources of corn and oil. We spent nearly a million men and nearly a thousand million of money to these ends. This year we are spending ninety-two thousand men and fifty millions of money on the same objects.

Our government is worse than the old Turkish system. They kept fourteen thousand local conscripts embodied, and killed a yearly average of two hundred Arabs in maintaining peace. We keep ninety thousand men, with aeroplanes, armoured cars, gunboats, and armoured trains. We have killed about ten thousand Arabs in this rising this summer. We cannot hope to maintain such an average: it is a poor country, sparsely peopled; but Abd el Hamid would applaud his masters, if he saw us working. We are told the object of the rising was political, we are not told what the local people want. It may be what the Cabinet has promised them. A Minister in the House of Lords said that we must have so many troops because the local people will not enlist. On Friday the Government announce the death of some local levies defending their British officers, and say that the services of these men have not yet been sufficiently recognized because they are too few (adding the characteristic Baghdad touch that they are men of bad character). There are seven thousand of them, just half the old Turkish force of occupation. Properly officered and distributed, they would relieve half our army there. Cromer controlled Egypt's six million people with five thousand British troops; Colonel Wilson fails to control Mesopotamia's three million people with ninety thousand troops.

We have not reached the limit of our military commitments. Four weeks ago the staff in Mesopotamia drew up a memorandum asking for four more divisions. I believe it was forwarded to the War Office, which has now sent three brigades from India. If the North-West Frontier cannot be further denuded, where is the balance to come from? Meanwhile, our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad. General Dyer was relieved of his command in India for a much smaller error, but the responsibility in this case is not on the Army, which has acted only at the request of the civil authorities. The War Office has made every effort to reduce our forces, but the decisions of the Cabinet have been against them.

The Government in Baghdad have been hanging Arabs in that town for political offences, which they call rebellion. The Arabs are not at war with us. Are these illegal executions to provoke the Arabs to reprisals on the three hundred British prisoners they hold? And, if so, is it that their punishment may be more severe, or is it to persuade our other troops to fight to the last?

We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the world. All experts say that the labour supply is the ruling factor in its development. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?
I came across this at COUNTERSPIN CENTRAL under the title HISTORY BOMB.

Yep.

Posted by Alan at 11:39 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
home

Newer | Latest | Older